Episode 2, “Coma,” has the best Bob scene of the series, but it comes on the heels of the truly terrible song James, Donna, and Maddy sing together.

Ridiculous - that song is one of the highlights of the entire series and represents one of the few pure Lynch moments that hasn't been aped by imitators in subsequent TV series and films.

Agreed, the three singing "Just You and I" is one of the very best scenes of the series. It's basically a 1950s teenager scene being played out by early 1990s teenagers, if that makes any sense. I found it quite special and unique, and it's another lovely Badalamenti song.

Meanwhile, I've been seeing similar articles and I don't understand the attempt to design a Cliffs Notes version of the series, for any reason. The entire Twin Peaks is a major work that should be experienced in full.

That New York Times piece does mention an interesting aspect of the show though - while there are exceptions it often feels that the adult characters seem childish at best and full blown deluded at worst while the 'teen' characters seem to be dealing with all of the tougher grown up issues of relationships, sex and betrayal. Maybe taking the world so seriously is a teenage phase (that can potentially destroy you, or at least leave its mark) before you drift off into your own world?

The characters’ pain was hilarious if you were a callow teenager or college student who didn’t understand loss or and the many, equally valid methods by which art can examine it.... Twin Peaks was playful about everything except pain. It took pain so seriously that over time, an increasing proportion of its initially big viewership did not know how to process it, except to squirm, snicker performatively, or stop watching.

This was unexpectedly abrasive from Seitz, but valid. Far too many people laugh at the Palmers' anguish in the pilot episode, or at Leland's funeral breakdown, scenes that aren't played for laughs. There is a sincerity in Twin Peaks that simply isn't present in modern shows. It's not just about the pain either; Dale Cooper is Lynch's most compelling lead character because his chipper demeanor is without a trace of irony. Great write-up, and this:

Nothing like this has ever happened before — not with an American artist as uncompromising and instinctual and fundamentally unknowable as Lynch, and certainly not at a point in the artist’s career where he’s traveled further away from the commercial beaten path than any director of comparable stature.

Is the most exciting prospect that's been lost among all the revival hysteria. Can't wait!

Last edited by diamonds on Sat May 20, 2017 2:57 pm, edited 1 time in total.

There were trucks around Manhattan giving away cherry pie and coffee with packaging promoting the show. The pie was okay (as good as one could hope, I guess), coffee was good but less desirable given the hot weather.

Missed the trucks yesterday but did nab one of the two branded MetroCards (Dale)! I think I'll go to the day-long festivities at Videology tomorrow and give myself enough time to get back to my apt if the clientele encourages me to want to watch the premiere in silence.

ALSO: I made a dumb, spooky cover video of SYCAMORE TREES to celebrate the return and utilize my new hairstyle and I cant figure out how to get the AVCHD files to get to YouTube without developing artifacts despite all of the tutorials I've read so if you have tips, do send a PM.

I just shotgunned all four episodes that are available for public consumption and I am so thrilled that David Lynch seems to just be doing whatever he wants to do here. It feels more Mulholland Drive than Twin Peaks in terms of tone and menace, but I am totally okay with the fact that this just seems to be an unusual new Lynch project that uses the Twin Peaks universe as a loose set dressing for a bizarre love letter to Kyle MacLachlan. I can't believe we get 14 more hours of this. And I can't believe it's actually on TV.

It's got to be a contender for the most bizarre, frustrating thing ever put on television. Parts 3 and 4 are just...wow. I can imagine a lot of people are going to be put off very quickly. It's definitely trying my patience a bit, and I was riveted through the first two parts.

I thought Part 3 was the best so far, but I loved the NYC sequence from the first episode (or was it spread over the first two? They're running together a bit) - somehow Lynch is able to take 20 minutes of something very sparse and obtuse and make it into the best horror film in years. It wasn't quite the diner scene from Mulholland Drive, but that feeling of dread was very familiar.

Just watched the first two... And I'm... Interested. Feels much more Inland Empire and all of Lynch's post Mulholland Drive work. The inner fan boy in me just wants to see the whole cast, the Lynch fan loves how he completely disregards everyone's expectations but I still have trouble with his digital work. It just seems a bit ridiculous sometimes (which is why I'm not the biggest fan of everything after Mulholland) like the shaky cam etc.
But I'm in for sure.
Where can I watch episodes 3&4 if I don't live in the US?

dda1996a wrote:...I still have trouble with his digital work. It just seems a bit ridiculous sometimes (which is why I'm not the biggest fan of everything after Mulholland) like the shaky cam etc...

This was my only quibble with the first two hours (haven't watched Episodes 3 or 4 yet): the cheapness of the CGI/digital effects didn't always measure up to the aesthetic that Lynch established with every other aspect of the production. Still, this is a minor quibble. I figured the proceedings might tip closer to Inland Empire, but was not prepared for the first two hours to draw from everything Lynch has experimented with as a visual artist, from the his early shorts through to his recent digital animations. Elements from all of his feature films are in there as well ("The Arm" now connects the Black Lodge to the radiator theater of Eraserhead like never before). Oftentimes, there is humor found in the odd resonance of actors seen in other Lynch films appearing as similar characters (Brent Briscoe seemingly playing the same detective from Mulholland Drive) or speaking lines similar to ones they spoke in an earlier film (here I'm thinking of Patrick Fischler as the Vegas bigwig who sounds like he's still trying to warn others about the scary guy behind Winkie's).

Similar to how the original series satirized popular night-time soaps of its era (Dallas, Falcon Crest), this third season seems to be satirizing current or recent favorites like Lost, True Detective and Fargo. The difference is these shows were largely based on the template that Twin Peaks created, so the echo returns in odd ways.

Finally, it was harrowing to see Catherine Coulson, who died only a week or two into production, returning in two brief scenes without any attempt to disguise the effects of her illness. The passage of time is, unavoidably, a key theme, but the darker, more troubled world that Lynch is presenting in this new series makes the era of 1990/91 feel like an idyll.

Roger Ryan wrote:Similar to how the original series satirized popular night-time soaps of its era (Dallas, Falcon Crest), this third season seems to be satirizing current or recent favorites like Lost, True Detective and Fargo. The difference is these shows were largely based on the template that Twin Peaks created, so the echo returns in odd ways.

I'm too young to have ever seen those prime-time soaps of the original shows day, but I never quite bought the line that Twin Peaks was an outright parody of soap operas. Even before the more ludicrous plotlines in season 2 is veers very close to just being a soap itself, with the lighting style and constant music cues on top of the very sentimental, seemingly neverending storylines. Of course that's a huge part of the appeal, but here Lynch is very obviously just mocking cop procedurals of the last two decades (my favorite gag of the night was the fingerprint machine, the "high tech" playing out on Lynch's cheap digital effects in a barely decorated office set).

Of course, the original Twin Peaks was far more than just a parody of night-time soaps in the same way that similar moments of parody in the new series are only a small element of the whole. Still, there's no getting around that the Season 1 cliffhanger was a direct send-up of the "Who shot J.R.?" phenomenon that Dallas had instigated a decade earlier.

Which is why I think it is so brilliant. I was born well after the series ended, so I had no clue about Dallas etc. but that finale works so brilliantly as it is anyway.
Episode 3 is a vast improvement on an already great first two episodes. That first half has to stand as one of the most brilliant things Lynch ever made (the rest of the episode is also great).
What's the schedule for the upcoming episodes? Will Showtime still air an extra episode for their subscribers every week?

So let's talk plot, insofar as we can at this point (spoilers through Episode 4 follow):

SpoilerShow

What I've been thinking about the most today is that damnable box in New York City. Who operates it? How did they discover that residents of the Black Lodge emerge there, and did they continue to fall down to the street below before the box was constructed? Does this mean that Laura Palmer is out there too, having left the lodge before our eyes, or was that her continuing on to a final resting place? I'm also fascinated by the speech mannerisms that Cooper/Bob had in the meeting with Albert and Gordon - any remaining pieces of Agent Cooper's soul that we got little glimpses of around the edges had completely disappeared and I think we were supposed to interpret his disturbing monotone as evidence that Bob was now the sole resident of his body, and Agent Cooper himself is now milling about in oversized suits with Naomi Watts. I realize how meandering this spoiler box is, so I'll stop it now.

dda1996a wrote:Which is why I think it is so brilliant. I was born well after the series ended, so I had no clue about Dallas etc. but that finale works so brilliantly as it is anyway.
Episode 3 is a vast improvement on an already great first two episodes. That first half has to stand as one of the most brilliant things Lynch ever made (the rest of the episode is also great).
What's the schedule for the upcoming episodes? Will Showtime still air an extra episode for their subscribers every week?

Apparently the schedule was at most curated by Lynch and at least approved by him and tweaked to fit his wishes. I believe that Showtime wanted to air two episodes per week, and he insisted on one per week after the initial rollout of the first four episodes (until we get to the final two). For premium cable, a May to September run of one season of a television show is pretty unprecedented.